Five members of the Australian women's rights organisation Collective Shout were subjected to coordinated online abuse — including deepfake images depicting decapitation and burning, published personal data, and threats of rape and murder — after the group persuaded payment processors PayPal, Visa and Mastercard to introduce rules that compelled video game platforms to halt the sale of games featuring rape, sexual torture and child sexual abuse, according to a report released on Wednesday.
Women's rights group members received deepfakes and death threats after campaign against violent video games
Five members of the Australian women's rights organisation Collective Shout were subjected to coordinated online abuse — including deepfake images depicting decapitation and burning, published personal data, and threats of rape and murder — after the group persuaded payment processors PayPal, Visa and Mastercard to introduce rules that compelled video game platforms to halt the sale of games featuring rape, sexual torture and child sexual abuse, according to a report released on Wednesday.
Collective Shout member Coralie Alison said she woke one day to find her personal phone number, date of birth and passwords posted online, followed within hours by deepfake images depicting her throat slit, her body burned alive, decapitated, stripped of her clothing and minced alive.
The group's director, Melinda Tankard Reist, described the abuse as a coordinated effort by 'thousands of perpetrators across multiple platforms and countries' intended to 'humiliate, threaten and endanger our safety.' She said the women were being punished for 'successfully persuading gaming platforms, through their payment providers, to halt the sale of games featuring rape, sexual torture and child sexual abuse and incest.'
The women's families were also reportedly targeted and their home addresses published on the internet, according to the report.
X owner Elon Musk reposted a petition calling on the payment platforms to reverse their decision, adding the word 'bravo'. X has no discernible Australian or global press office, and the ABC was unable to obtain comment from the company.
The United Nations special rapporteur on violence against women, Reem Alsalem, described the backlash as 'the most serious form of online violence against women human rights defenders' she had seen 'in a long time.'
The Online Hate Prevention Institute (OHPI) was commissioned to produce a separate report on the women's experience. Its author, Patrick Scolyer-Gray, told supporters gathered at Australia's Parliament House on Wednesday that the case was internationally significant. He said the abuse was framed publicly as a defence of free speech and anti-censorship concerns, but argued it 'was never about video games, and it was never about free speech,' stating that 'the backlash can't be understood without recognising the central role of misogyny.'
Scolyer-Gray said nearly every institution that should or could have interrupted the campaign failed to do so, adding that 'platform moderation systems proved inadequate, disinformation spread faster than corrections, abusive material remained online long enough to create the appearance of public consensus.'
The OHPI report made 47 recommendations. The first called for harmful and sexist content specific to women to be identified immediately and 'classified as misogynistic and a form of gender-based hate speech' before being removed by online platforms. The report also called on media organisations to act quickly to debunk misinformation.
E-Safety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said the technology industry needed to step up to stop platforms from being weaponised.
Collective Shout member Caitlin Roper said she was surprised by the profiles of those who participated in the abuse. 'Some might think that the abuse was perpetrated by a very specific subset of misogynistic men in the dark corners of the internet,' she said. 'The reality is that many of our abusers are regular men, who threatened to rape us, hunt us down and kill us from their actual social media accounts, showing them smiling alongside their wives and sometimes daughters.'
Group member Renee Chopping said her greatest hope for the report was 'that the next woman who speaks out against male violence is protected, not punished for refusing to be silenced.'
- The positions of PayPal, Visa and Mastercard on the payment policy changes or on the subsequent abuse campaign are not included in the source.
- The positions of the video game platforms that removed the games are not included.
- The identities or responses of any individuals who participated in the abuse campaign are not included.
- The full content or findings of all 47 OHPI recommendations beyond the first are not detailed.
- The specific platforms — beyond X — on which the coordinated abuse took place are not named.
- The timeline over which the abuse occurred and whether it has ceased is not specified.
- Whether any criminal investigations or legal actions have been initiated in connection with the abuse is not stated.
- The nature or findings of the Collective Shout members' own report, as distinct from the OHPI report, are not detailed beyond the women's personal accounts.
Read the original at ABC News Australia